


Pulses Can Drive From Here

by katerina_sleeps



Series: We're Never Done With Killing Time [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 11:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3133004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katerina_sleeps/pseuds/katerina_sleeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan scratched at an old, brown scab beneath the five knotted leather bands he wore around his wrist. Last week, he and Adam had taken turns dragging each other on a moving dolly behind the BMW, and they both still had the marks to show it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulses Can Drive From Here

Ronan was frowning at a rusty moving dolly in front of Monmouth Manufacturing when Adam pedaled up to him. 

“Is Gansey here?” Adam asked him as he climbed off his bike. He stopped trying to force the kickstand down after a few failed attempts and lay the bike on the ground gently before turning back to Ronan. He was still staring at the dolly. “Lynch!”

“Shut up, Parrish, I’m thinking.”

“Thinking so hard you can’t answer a yes or no question? Somehow I doubt that.”

Ronan huffed and gestured at the empty lot in front of the building. “Do you see his fucking car, asshole?”

_Because the Pig is such a reliable mode of transportation._ Adam took a deep breath to push down a wave of irritation, and dropped it, too tired to argue. Gansey would show up eventually. “What are you doing out here anyway?” he asked. 

“Trying to work out how to attach this thing,” he kicked the dolly; it squeaked a few inches away from him, “to my car.” 

Adam frowned at the dolly, then at Ronan before sighing. “This is a terrible idea.”

Ronan finally tore his gaze away from the dolly to grin at Adam, all white teeth and dangerously narrowed eyes. “Not anymore Parrish,” he said. “We need two people for this to work.” 

Adam opened his mouth to protest but Ronan was already jogging towards the car. He sighed again, and followed. 

They managed to find a length of rope and some hopelessly tangled bungee cords in the trunk of the BMW. Ronan crawled under the car to secure one end of the rope while Adam knotted the other end around the dolly’s handle. Ronan was finished entirely too quickly for Adam’s liking so he crawled under the car himself to tie it again. 

“Alright!” Ronan said when Adam stood back up. “You first Parrish.”

“Wait, what?” Adam said, but Ronan was already climbing into the driver’s seat. “Bastard.” Before he could think too hard about what he was doing, Adam sat himself down on the dolly, gripping the sides tightly and bracing his feet against the rounded bar at the top. The BMW’s engine roared to life. Adam squinted against the exhaust fumes; he focused on the rope’s knot tied tightly between his sneakers. 

The car jerked forward before Adam was expecting it to. He let out a strangled yelp that, thankfully, Ronan couldn’t hear over the sound of the engine. The dolly bounced and rattled against the asphalt and Adam clung on for dear life. The BMW sped up and there was nothing to focus on but the tires squealing in front of him, the wind in his ears, his heart pounding in his chest. Ronan suddenly jerked the car to the left - Adam could hear him whooping through his open window - and the dolly swung out in a wide arc, wheels screeching, tipping sideways. Adam went flying. 

He landed hard on his right side, losing some skin in the process. He rolled onto his back with a groan and lay staring at the blue sky above him while he listened to Ronan cut the engine and jog over to him. 

“You still alive Parrish?” Ronan’s shadow blocked the sun from Adam’s eyes. 

“Apparently.” Adam sat up and inspected his arm. There was a large scrape from his elbow stretching down his forearm almost to his wrist. He brushed bits of gravel out of the raw skin with a wince, but it wasn’t bleeding too much. 

“Nice,” Ronan said, eyeing the damage. Adam glared at him, which Ronan ignored. “Alright, my turn.” He tossed the keys to the BMW in Adam’s lap and turned to flip the dolly back over before Adam could say a word. 

Adam picked up the keys and eyed the BMW. Ronan was already sitting on the dolly. 

“Get moving Parrish!” he shouted. 

With the keys clutched in his hand, Adam stood up and made his way to the car. He slid into the drivers seat, breathing in the smell of leather and gasoline. It felt strange to be sitting behind the wheel; he rarely even rode in the passenger seat. 

Adam took a deep breath. He could do this. How many manual transmissions had he repaired in the shop? Dozens, probably. He could take a clutch apart and put it back together with his eyes closed; how hard could driving with one be? 

_You’ve heard Boyd explain to customers how to drive stick a thousand times. You can do this._

_You cannot wreck Ronan’s car._

Adam pressed down on the clutch with his left foot and the brake pedal with his right. He fumbled with the keys, swearing under his breath until he managed to find the right one. 

“For fuck’s sake, Parrish, let’s go!”

Adam flipped Ronan off through the open window as he started the engine. With his left hand on the wheel and his right hand gripping the gear stick, he slowly eased his foot off the clutch and pressed down on the gas. 

By some miracle he managed to get the car into first gear without a major catastrophe and Ronan shouted with glee as the car jerked him forward. 

Getting from first to second, he wasn’t so lucky. Adam winced at the sound of the grinding gears and his sweaty hand slipped off the gear stick. He finally managed to regain control of the BMW, bringing it to a screeching halt. Adam sat, frozen, hands still gripping the wheel. He could hear Ronan swearing through the open window; he was just visible in the side mirror, laying on the ground. Adam kept his eyes on his knuckles as Ronan approached the driver’s side. 

“What. The fuck. Was that.” 

Ronan was bent over to look into the car, his hands braced on the edge of the door. Adam glanced over, saw the fresh scrapes and cuts on Ronan’s arms, and quickly looked away again. 

“I, uh. I stalled the car,” he muttered. 

Ronan breathed deeply through his nose. “Yes, Parrish, I fucking got that part. How the fuck did you, of all people, manage to stall my fucking car? You’re supposed to be the goddamn car whisperer! I’ve seen you fix this very goddamn car before!”

Adam rolled his eyes and finally let go of the wheel. “Seriously Lynch? Yes, I _fix_ cars. When have you ever seen me actually drive one?”

Ronan opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything. Adam waited for him to start yelling. Instead, he rolled his eyes and dropped his hands to his sides. 

“Scoot over.”

“What?”

“Get in the fucking passenger seat, Parrish, I’m teaching you how to fucking drive.”

Adam stared at him for a moment but before he could decide if Ronan was serious or not, they heard the unmistakable sound of the Pig roaring up to the lot. Gansey climbed out of the car with a broad smile on his face, still wearing his Aglionby uniform even though school had been over for hours. 

“Good! You’re both here,” he said as he walked up to them. “Where’s Noah?”

“Upstairs probably,” Ronan answered. “Where the hell have you been?”

He clapped a hand on Ronan’s shoulder. “Researching, my friends. I think I’ve found a way to locate the ley line.” He looked between Ronan and Adam, still sitting behind the wheel in the BMW, then caught sight of the overturned dolly behind them. “What on earth have you two been up to?”

“What we’ve been _up to_ is, Parrish here has no idea how to use a manual transmission,” Ronan said with a scowl. Adam rolled his eyes.

Gansey stared. “Really? But you’ve fixed the Pig so many times.”

“Apparently fixing has nothing to do with driving. You should have seen how he stalled-”

“Oh my god, can we stop talking about this?” Adam said. He opened the door, bumping it into Ronan as he did so, and climbed out. “What did you find Gansey?”

He looked back and forth between them, eyeing their newly bloody arms, but Gansey was unable to resist his favorite topic. “Well you both know that St. Mark’s Eve is next week, right?”

They nodded in unison and waited patiently while Gansey went off about energy and church watchers and tape recorders. Well, Adam waited patiently. Ronan interrupted after quite a short amount of time. 

“If you’re gonna be rambling like this all night, I need pizza,” he said. “Nino’s?”

Gansey nodded. “Good idea. I’ll go get Noah.”

While Gansey made his way upstairs, Adam walked over to the dolly and got to work untying the rope. Ronan crawled under the car again to do the same with the other end.

They were done by the time Gansey stepped out of the building with Noah in tow. Before they climbed into the Pig, Ronan pointed at Adam. “This isn’t over Parrish. I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t even know how to drive a stick.” 

Adam rolled his eyes and slid into the back seat beside Noah. “Then I guess we'll have to start those lessons.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first TRC fic! I'll probably add a few more chapters with other 'missing scene' type scenarios. I have some ideas but nothing is extensively planned out so we'll see how it goes. Please leave some feedback if you have any suggestions!
> 
> Confession: I know absolutely nothing about cars, especially stick shifts. Everything in here regarding driving I learned from a quick google search, so mistakes are likely.
> 
> A big thank you goes to Vanz (littlelionvanz) for listening to me while I had a crisis over whether or not to post this. You're literally the best :D
> 
> Fic title and chapter title from "400 Lux" by Lorde
> 
> (I'm also on tumblr at fuckinalienlooking)


End file.
